Virpi Kristiina Tuunainen

Mobile banking services

Adopting new and innovative mobile financial applications and service provisioning methods.

Mobile commerce at crossroads

Lessons learned from an international study of users of mobile handheld devices and services.

An empirical investigation of mobile ticketing service adoption in public transportation

In this paper, we present results from a study of mobile ticketing service adoption in public transportation. The theoretical background of the study is based on technology adoption and trust theories, which are augmented with concepts of mobile use context and mobility. Our empirical findings from analyses of a survey data suggest that compatibility of the mobile ticketing service with consumer behavior is a major determinant of adoption. Mobility and contextual factors, including budget constraints, availability of other alternatives, and time pressure in the service use situation were also found to have a strong effect on the adoption decision. Our findings suggest that contextual and mobile service-specific features are important determinants of mobile service adoption and should thus be integrated into the traditional adoption models.

The Impact of Use Situation and Mobility on the Acceptance of Mobile Ticketing Services

This paper presents results from a study of mobile ticketing service acceptance in public transportation. The theoretical background of the study was drawn from technology acceptance and diffusion of innovation theories, which were augmented with issues related to mobile service features, as well as the mobile use situation. The resulting research model was tested with data gathered through a self-administered mail survey with 360 subjects. Our findings suggest that usefulness and benefits of the mobile ticketing service are perceived differently in different use situations and that use situation has a significant effect on use intention. The results indicate that traditional adoption models should be augmented with the use situation and mobility constructs to better understand and explain the specific factors, which determine the use of mobile services.

Understanding runaway information technology projects: results from an international research program based on escalation theory

Information technology (IT) projects can fail for any number of reasons, and can result in considerable financial losses for the organizations that undertake them. One pattern of failure that has been observed but seldom studied is the runaway project that takes on a life of its own. Such projects exhibit characteristics that are consistent with the broader phenomenon known as escalating commitment to a failing course of action. Several theories have been offered to explain this phenomenon, including self-justification theory and the so-called sunk cost effect which can be explained by prospect theory. This paper discusses the results of a series of experiments designed to test whether the phenomenon of escalating commitment could be observed in an IT context. Multiple experiments conducted within and across cultures suggest that a high level of sunk cost may influence decision makers to escalate their commitment to an IT project In addition to discussing this and other findings from an ongoing stream of research, the paper focuses on the challenges faced in carrying out the experiments.

Barriers to global electronic commerce: a cross-country study of Hong Kong and Finland

Babson College So far electronic commerce has primarily been limited to electronic business-to-business transactions and small, but quickly growing, consumer-oriented activities on the Internet, such as electronic advertisements mated with the traditional mail-order operations. What lies ahead in the future is a concept of true global electronic commerce (GEC), in which firms will exploit a virtual value chain to migrate much of their value-adding activities from the physical marketplace to the virtual marketplace. The capability for business concerns to be able to reach out to a global business community at a relatively small cost is very attractive and promises to transform international business. Despite this realization, it has become increasingly evident that the proliferation of GEC is dependent on resolution of a myriad of technical, organizational, economic, cultural, political, and legal issues. In this study, field studies of 10 companies in Hong Kong and Finland were conducted with an eye toward identifying the major barriers that have hindered or slowed down the wide acceptance of electronic commerce across borders. In addition to several country-specific barriers to GEC, resistance to change, lack of education about the potentials of GEC, and lack of flexible software were found to be the key inhibitors to the orderly acceptance and deployment of computer-mediated commerce at the global level.

Deploying NFC Technology for Mobile Ticketing Services Identification of Critical Business Model Issues

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a promising new communication technology that, among other things, allows mobile phones to emulate smart cards such as the travel cards used in public transportation. Bringing the travel card into mobile phone creates numerous benefits for both end users and service providers, which is why mobile ticketing with NFC technology has been considered a promising service. However, despite optimistic predictions, NFC technology and mobile ticketing services based on it, has yet to take off. While technical problems have played a part in this delay early on, the most significant reasons can be found in the challenging business models needed to realize NFC services. In this study, we aim to analyze the NFC mobile ticketing business model holistically and to identify critical issues that affect the commercial success of such a service. To do so, the NFC mobile ticketing business model is evaluated using a theoretical framework called the STOF model. The research material is comprised of a literature review of both academic and nonacademic literature as well as several expert interviews.

Merchant adoption of mobile payment systems

Wide enough acceptance and adoption of mobile payment technologies and systems is a prerequisite for consumer adoption of many, if not most, mobile commerce services. Based on the innovation diffusion theory of Rogers (1995) we present results from two, concurrent sets of empirical data on merchant adoption of mobile payment systems. In addition to the potential advantages of mobile payments we also identified several barriers to their adoption, most clearly in four categories: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity and costs.

Friend or Foe? The Ambivalent Relationship between Mobile Technology and its Users

This paper reports on an empirical study that examined the total user experience of mobile technology users. We held a total of 33 focus group sessions comprised of 222 active mobile device users in four highly developed countries (Finland, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States) with high penetration of mobile technology. We are specifically focusing on manifestations of paradoxes with regard to mobile technology. We identify eight major technology paradoxes that play a central role in the mobile technology usage experience: (1) empowerment-enslavement, (2) independence- dependence, (3) fulfills needs-creates needs, (4) competence-incompetence, (5) planning-improvisation, (6) engaging-disengaging, (7)public-private, and (8) illusion-disillusion. Our findings suggest conceptualizing the phenomenon of mobile technology usage experience from a context-based and process-oriented perspective where paradoxes of technology shape user experience and determine coping strategies.

Open Data Services: Research Agenda

Open data promises an increased availability of previously private, mostly , governmental datasets for service development. However, research on the topic is only starting to surface. In this article we propose a research agenda for open data service research. We review earlier relevant literature to extrapolate open data as a phenomenon from the perspective of the information systems field. Based on a classification of research challenges, we build a research agenda, and outline a set of research questions. We contribute to the discussion on future avenues for research on open data in IS.